Data, tech jobs shine as the Internet of Things take off

Sydney, July 31, 2014

STEM-related online work takes off as start-ups embrace the Internet of Things, while all things 3D soar on the back of continual 3D printing advances and SMEs are trusting freelancers with their finances and corporate identity, a report said.

From a record 751,115 good online jobs, data scientists from Freelancer.com, a leading freelancing and crowdsourcing marketplace, have teased out the latest online work trends - and the results show a sharp rise in STEM related jobs as start-ups and SMEs embrace the Internet of Things future.

Freelancer.com chief executive Matt Barrie said: “This quarter’s Fast 50 confirms what I and many other industry leaders have known for years - the developed world has a STEM shortage, and our education systems are often years behind the cutting edge.

“We risk making our university system irrelevant in a world that is increasingly adopting online education platforms like Khan Academy, Udacity and Coursera. Faced with a lack of local technical talent, small businesses and start-ups are increasingly turning to platforms like Freelancer.com to find STEM workers.”

STEM-related online work skyrockets

The inexorable tide of innovation is increasingly turning to internet enabled devices, which a 2013 Cisco white paper suggests will be responsible for a massive $14.4 trillion of value between now and 2022. The IoT fascination gained widespread attention when Google acquired Nest Labs for $3.2 billion in cash. Nest Labs represents the growing market for environmental control systems, which we predict will become ever present in our homes and offices in coming years.

As more entrepreneurs have wifi lightbulb moments, businesses integrating hardware and software have begun generating huge demand for STEM skills, and faced with shortages across the developed world, start-ups and SMEs are turning to online freelancers to fill the gaps.

On the hardware side, core disciplines like Matlab & Mathematica (up 37.2 per cent to 1803 jobs), Electrical Engineering (up 21.0 per cent to 1212 jobs), Electronics (up 15.0 per cent to 1203 jobs) and Mathematics (up 17.8 per cent to 1367 jobs) have all seen huge rises.

Meanwhile on the software side, the sheer volume of internet available devices, estimated by CISCO to reach almost 3.5 times the global population by next year, has changed the way start-ups and SMEs use and collect data. Smart devices which are in sync with and seek to predict user behaviour are largely centered around data manipulation. Their new found prominence is confirmed by a huge rise in the programming language Python (up 22.9 per cent to 1864 jobs) and the rise in core IoT -related disciplines such as Data Mining, Web Scraping and Data processing.

All things 3D soar on the back of 3D printing advances

3D printing is another industry that is surging on the back of technological progress. As the average price of a domestic 3D printer continues to plummet, a whole industry around 3D design and modelling is being created. For the 8th consecutive quarter, 3D printing related industries have shot upwards, giving a total gain of over 144 per cent compared to Q2 2013. This quarter alone,3D Design, 3D Modelling, 3D Rendering and 3D Animation are up 31.6 per cent (to 1061 jobs), 13.2 per cent (to 3657 jobs), 11.0 per cent (to 3090 jobs) and 9.2 per cent (to 3475 jobs) respectively.

Looking at 3D printing jobs over the past two years on Freelancer.com, the continuous upward trend and acceleration in 2014 affirm that the next industrial revolution has arrived.

The strong growth in the 3D industry has spurred technologists and corporations into a race to design and patent the latest in 3D technology. A recent 3D Printing Technology Insight Report from the Patent Insight Group showed a dramatic rise in the total number of published patents over the last 52 years within the 3D printing industry. The number of patents published for 3D printing and additive manufacturing in the last three and a half years equates to almost the entire number awarded in the previous 50 years combined.

SMEs trusting freelancers with their finances and corporate identity

While STEM jobs have had a stellar quarter, another significant trend is the rise in SMEs choosing to outsource their Finance (up 15.4 per cent to 1269 jobs) and Accounting (up 21.8 per cent to 1672 jobs) work. Increased transparency provided by cloud accounting packages such as Xero and Quickbooks is helping to pull basic finance and accounting into the 21st century.

Meanwhile, SMEs are also engraining freelancers even further into their businesses, working on their branding and Corporate Identity (up 19.4 per cent to 1208 jobs), as Business Cards, Powerpoint, Brochure Design and Flyer Design rise by 11.9 per cent (to 1003 jobs), 22.6 per cent (to 1026 jobs), 10.8 per cent (to 1825 jobs) and 24.7 per cent (to 1074 jobs), respectively.
8888888Apple is in the dregs as Android continues to dominate

Since the second half of 2012, the Freelancer.com Fast 50 has been tracking the consistent and inevitable rise in Android adoption, as Google and Samsung’s strategy of focusing on the developing world and wearable tech pays off. With the recent hype around Android Play, the world has been fiercely focused on the global powerhouse. Growth in Apple ecosystem related jobs have stalled, and this quarter is no different.

Java is up 10.0 per cent (to 6317 jobs), while Android has been stable at 11083 jobs, losing only 0.5 per cent jobs this quarter. On the other hand, iPhone and Objective C are down by 10.5 per cent and 13.1 per cent respectively (to 9136 and 1944 jobs). However, the worst result is reserved for iPad jobs, down a massive 18.4 per cent (from 3133 to 2556 jobs) as global sales show a stark fall in Apple’s latest Q2 2014 earnings report.

Content strategies rule as SEO industry continues to reel

An industry closely followed by the Freelancer Fast 50 has been SEO (stagnant at 12,657 jobs) which has suffered continual quarters of decline. Businesses have been battered and bruised by Panda and Penguin updates which have continually redefined search results and put billions of SME marketing dollars to waste. As a result SMEs are now looking elsewhere to put their hard-earned cash. And without a doubt, the industry that has benefited from SEO’s fall is content marketing. Businesses are using high quality and engaging information to remain front of mind and drive customer acquisition rather than merely manipulating the search engine algorithm.

With core disciplines of Content Writing, Creative Writing and Report Writing up by 22.2 per cent, 21.6 per cent and 18.4 per cent respectively (to 4793, 1276 and 3070 jobs), it is clear that content is the new king, said Freelancer.com.

Facebook, Twitter and Youtube marketing all take a hit as Facebook tightens the screws for organic reach of Facebook Pages.

Facebook marketing took a hit this quarter with jobs decreasing 9.0 per cent (to 7090 jobs) which has come off the back of Facebook’s dramatic algorithm updates to lower the organic reach of Facebook pages.

In the wake of this, Facebook is pulling out all stops to encourage businesses to advertise on the platform, this week launching its Ads Manager on Android, iOS and the Mobile Web. But the real shock has been the dramatic fall for both Twitter and Youtube, with a loss of 19.9 per cent (to 2318 jobs) and 23.2 per cent (to 1218 jobs) respectively. – TradeArabia News Service